


On The Bike

by Gleaming_Spires (cuppaktea)



Category: History Boys (2006), History Boys - All Media Types, History Boys - Bennett
Genre: History Boys Fictober, I creeped myself out writing this, I'm still experimenting, Multi, Non-con touching, but please don't read if that sort of thing creeps you out, from Hector's perspective, nothing that isn't in canon, pervy old man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 09:09:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16365002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuppaktea/pseuds/Gleaming_Spires
Summary: He retreats to the sanctuary of the garage with its smells of damp and petrol and the object of his adoration. His thoughts settle, as they often do, on his boys.





	On The Bike

**Author's Note:**

> Um... so I genuinely creeped myself out writing this, and I kind of wish I hadn't started it. I dislike Hector a lot more than I did before I wrote it. 
> 
> If anyone does read it (because I wouldn't blame people for skipping past) I would be interested to know your thoughts - and sorry if I weird you out.
> 
> Although I feel the need to be clear before being creepy: all the boys are 18 (not that it makes Hector less rapey).

 

 

A few hours of bliss spent reading Auden and Isherwood this rainy Sunday afternoon was rudely curtailed twenty minutes ago by Mrs Hector’s return from church. Not that she speaks to him from the kitchen: her own part of the house, where she is currently busy putting on the Sunday roast. Yet her presence intrudes anyway, through the banging of roasting pans and chopping boards, the noise of the radio and the way she will ‘tsk’ now and then at a spot of bird mess on the window.

 

He anticipates her emergence from the kitchen and it makes him uneasy, so he can’t concentrate. The time comes too soon for the varnished floors to be vacuumed, and there is no more chance to read.

 

“Douglas, you’re under my feet in here.”

 

“Sorry, dear.”

 

He heaves himself out of the armchair, the sound of tutting following him as she straightens the cushions on the chair he has just vacated.

 

He retreats to the sanctuary of the garage with its smells of damp and petrol and the object of his adoration.

 

He pulls back the protective covering from his precious bike and folds it neatly on top of the workbench, it wouldn’t do to have it lying around haphazardly when Mrs Hector comes in with the tea.

 

With a soft cloth, he sets to work polishing the leather of the seat and lets his mind drift.

 

His thoughts settle, as they often do, on his boys.

 

He remembers when he was that age: sitting at the front of the classroom, so eager to know everything, and yet on the edge of the room always: partly to observe the other boys, as Posner observes Dakin from the corner of his eye. He too was never included, never one of them, although Posner has far better friends than he did at that age. The other reason, of course, was less pleasant, it was to ignore the ridicule from the other boys, the cruel, not quite silent, jibes they muttered behind his back when he made himself obvious.

 

Not like his boys. Although there had been some similarities, some of them had been athletic like Rudge, clever like Scripps, tall like Crowther, boisterous like Timms, slight and soft like Akthar and seductive and self-assured like Dakin.

 

He knows them all by touch as well as sight by now... nearly all of them.

 

He wishes – Oh! How he wishes he’d been brave enough in those days to reach out and touch them. Now he tries to make up for lost time and claim a little bit of them – their youth, their confidence, their joy - for himself.

 

Hector dons an apron and gloves (no dirty hands or splashed clothes allowed at the dinner table).

 

 _Dakin looks sad,_ Hector thinks to himself as he carefully measures the ratio of soap to water in a jug. _All that posturing must hide something broken deep down_. He wonders if the boy keeps a diary, if he pours his heart out at night when he’s alone in the silence of his room: alone in his confusion.

 

_Alas, he was never that brave when he had been young, with the Dakin’s he knew. Not like Posner._

 

Shaking all thoughts of his youngest class member from his mind, he carries the bucket outside to the tap.

 

 _Crowther lacks the exuberance of Dakin_ , he thinks, as he watches the water foaming. Hector wonders if he has a girlfriend. He doubts it, somehow.

 

Soaping the wheel arches his mind drifts to Scripps. _Scripps is far jollier than the rest; it’s probably the influence of the church. No secret sorrows there._

He takes down the body wax from its shelf and before unscrewing the lid and taking a moment to inhale deeply.

 

Akthar hasn’t ridden home with him in ages, it’s a shame. The poor lad always seems to have some club on. Hector worries he’ll tire himself out if he isn’t careful. _It is a real shame,_ Hector misses his small frame hanging on to the back of his jacket as they swing around the corner and the cheeky smile he knows is waiting over his shoulder. _Perhaps,_ the thought occurs to him, _that’s why he’s stopped – perhaps he’s afraid of falling off on the sharp bend. The next time he’ll take care to go slowly around the corners so as not to put him off._

 

He knows his boys laugh at him when he isn’t there, but he flatters himself it’s fond. _It’s a … mutual understanding they have together. From them, he takes stolen moments of the life he had longed for and is now out of his grasp forever, as well as the thrill of seeing how much he can get away with – like grandmother’s footsteps. To them he gives perhaps an illicit thrill that they’re too young to have experienced elsewhere._

 

All except Posner. The poor boy wouldn’t say ‘no’ he’s sure of it, he’s so sweet natured, so trusting, so desperate for approval, and Hector would hate to trespass where he was unwelcome.

 

But that’s not the only reason. The boy is so lonely, so tentative of his own desires and wants and urges, for all his bravery in declaring himself to Dakin. It’s unbearable to watch and Hector finds it difficult to be near him without recoiling.

 

“Douglas, dinner is ready.”

 

“Coming dear.”

 

Body waxed and headlamps gleaming, he pulls the dustsheet back over the bike, where she waits for the morning and their next adventure.


End file.
